CCR 691: Moss, Kirsch, Cushman (Ethnography)

CCR 691 Notes

10/29/09

Moss, Beverly J. “Ethnography and Composition.” Methods and Methodology in Composition Research. Eds. Gesa Kirsch and Patricia A. Sullivan. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Seeks to answer two questions:

1. What do comp studies need to know about ethnography?

a. “ethnography in composition studies is generally topic oriented and concerned more narrowly with communicative behavior or the interrelationship between language and culture” (156).

2. What challenges arise when we investigate communities through which we are a part of?

Some principles of ethnography

· Often participant-observer

· Context is crucial

· Usually a hypothesis or focus and a conceptual framework, but new interests should arise and old questions should be revised (157).

· You must negotiate access and interact with community according to that community (158)

· Fieldwork: gather as much info/data as is available, such as interviews, recordings, artifacts, notes, questionnaires (159)

· Data analysis is designed to discover patterns or interesting observations (160)

· Writing the report is usually in a narrative, story-telling fashion (160-161)

· Insiders must work to make the familiar unfamiliar: interrogate assumptions, find interest in the mundane, be cautious about not ignoring or overlooking patterns or significant connections (164-167)

· Insiders must acknowledge the effects of their own roles and participation in the community (165). Work to reflect on ethnocentrism and bias (168).

· Insiders must be cautious about how to present the material so that they are fair, accurate, critical, and loyal, while not going overboard in the opposite direction either (169).

Kirsch, Gesa E. Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research: The Politics of Location, Interpretation, and Publication. New York: State University of New York Press.

· Basically, she’s discussing how in feminist research, our goals are to become very close to and collaborate with our participants, but this is problematic since our findings and interpretations may be offensive or disempowering to our subjects. She suggests that we enact in dialogic interactions with participants and allow them say in how data are interpreted and presented.

Cushman, Ellen. The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community.

· It’s ethnographic, but she has a “activist methodology” (x), where she investigates literacy on a class and race level.

· Wants to look at both the politically-infused struggles individuals experience and the coping strategies/tools individuals call on (these individuals being inner-city residents, mostly women and children)

· Looks at “linguistic abilities and political insights” (xi) individuals have for negotiating “institutional language” (xii)

· Data gathered (tapes, artifacts, field notes) (xi)

ETHNOGRAPHY

Possibilities

· Not being held to “false consciousness.” Looking within our social worlds (TJ).

· Co-interpretation: process is fluid (Cushman and Eileen).

· Explore what is present (TJ).

· Empower your people; reciprocity; expose power (Justin)

· Strategic essentialism (Amber, Steve, Eileen, Melissa)

· Activism

Limitations

· Ethics: message you send out is not what you observe, cuz participants are not performing the truth that they claim (Justin).

· Co-interpretation: material limits, time, space, connection/understanding

· Representing negotiations in your text (Eileen)

· What are you giving back? (TJ)

· High stakes! Intervention vs. access (Eileen)

· Insiders: remember to make the unsurprising surprising (Eileen/Moss)

Ethical Dilemmas

· Views and positions of participants and their “claim” to inhabit (false consciousness) (TJ).

· Participants “hurt” by your study (when you interrogate institutions, for example)

· Co-interpretations: disagreement, what do you do?

· Theoretical framework: using a lens doesn’t allow the participant to define themselves (Justin)

· Framing your subject in the deficit: how do you push against it without romancing it? (Amber)

· Intervening: helps right then, but maybe not helping others in the future? (Melissa)

CCR 691:Brandt (2001) *Literacy in American Lives*

Brandt, Deborah. Literacy in American Lives. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Some claims/assumptions:

· Literacy is part of the machine: it is part of material systems and is assigned a societal value

· Literacy is a tool for denial of opportunity; it is exploited for profit;

· Social privilege is associated with literacy

· Literacy is a resource like wealth, education, or trade-skill (5)

· Three themes

o “Literacy learning principally will refer to occasions when people take on new understandings or capacities; as we will see, literacy learning is not confined to school settings or formal study” (6-7).

o “Literacy development refers to the accumulating project of literacy learning across a lifetime, the interrelated effects and potentials of learning over time. It is closely connected to the life span and to the historical events that affect literacy as a collective good” (7).

o “Literacy opportunity refers to people’s relationships to social and economic structures that condition chances for learning and development. Realistically, these three dimensions are not easy to separate and, as literacy is lived, seem to be three sides of one coin” (7).

· “Together, these studies strongly imply that literacy among the U.S. citizenry has been underestimated by standardized tests and other narrow, usually school-based measurements that miss the meanings and forms of literacy in everyday life” (7).

Method

· Interviewed 80 folks born 1895-1985 about their literacy practices, all from Wisconsin

· Volunteers recruited through social networking and public locations (nursing homes, etc.)

· Looked at how literacy evolved for generations (especially throughout their lives as children, students, workers, parents, citizens)

· Research question: “How has literacy learning changed over the last century and how have rising expectations for literacy been experienced as part of felt life?” (4).

· Considers economical and historical influences of family, region, nation (politics, war, etc.)

· “collection of open-ended autobiographical monologues, structured and less structured interviews, and biographical surveys” (10).

· Cohort analysis over their life span

· Used interview script (appendix A)

· Addresses reading and writing, but more focus is on writing

· Transcriptions were edited for slip-ups, false starts, pauses, umms (13-14)

· Analytical framework: sponsors of literacy: “older relatives, teachers, religious leaders, supervisors, military officers, librarians, friends, editors, influential authors” (19). Seems to be missing other textual aritifacts.

· There is a LACK of theory and disciplinary framing

Some assumptions about methodology:

· Literacy should be viewed in context (looking at an individual’s unique experience)

· People refashion their memories (12)

· Editing for standard English aims at equality

Chapter 1: “Literacy, Opportunity, and Economic Change”

· Case studies of two women, showing how the rise, fall, and change of literacy is closely related to the rise, fall, and change of economics in their region. Surprisingly, it is the woman from the older generation who received more opportunity since economical advancements were available in her region at the time. Similarly, both had to negotiate “conservative effects of gender” (41).

Chapter 2: “Literacy and Illiteracy in Documentary”

· Case studies of two men, looking at how literacy standards change over time and depending on sites of literacy. For instance, one man’s skills for speech and debate are “eclipsed” when written language becomes the more privileged medium.

Chapter 3: “Accumulating Literacy: How Four Generations of One American Family Learned to Write”

· Case studies of four generations writing in one family (the Mays), showing that some literacy practices are passed from one generation to the next, while other practices are influenced by historical and technological change (The Depression, WWII, associations of literacy as elitism, industrialization, move from village to city to suburbia). See additional notes saved on this chapter.

Chapter 4: “The Power of It: Sponsors of Literacy in African American Lives”

· Case studies of African Americans who experienced literacy while being excluded from education and economic opportunity, thus literacy advanced without economic sponsorship. It appears that one major sponsor was AA churches.

Chapter 5: “The Sacred and the Profane: Reading versus Writing in Popular Memory”

· Considers how cultural context plays in when individuals learn to read vs. when individuals learn to write. Focuses on how “writing is a more ambivalently encouraged enterprise and is fraught, more than reading, with secrecy, punishment, and surveillance” (24).

Chapter 6: “The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification at the Twenty-First Century”

· Considers how literacy and social inequity are at play by comparing literacy experiences of two individuals with different socio-economic backgrounds: one white male of privileged class and one Latina female.

CCR 691: Brandt (2001) “Accumulating Literacy: How Four Generations of One American Family Learned to Write”

Brandt, Deborah. Literacy in American Lives. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

CHAPTER 3:

“Accumulating Literacy: How Four Generations of One American Family Learned to Write” (73-104)

Summary:

In this chapter, Brandt seems to speak to those who assume that our greatest challenge today regarding literacy has to do with making literacy available to new masses and populations. Brandt attempts to complicate this perspective by illustrating the degrees in which literacy practices changed over four generations of one family, highlighting how each member coped with those historical and economical advancements. In other words, Brandt shows that there are far more contextual complexities, technological advancements, and economical influences to literacy practices to consider rather than assuming the only change is the rise of populations being literate. Instead, Brandt argues that today’s challenge is to keep up with the ever evolving practices of literacy, especially in regard to how economic demands and events have historically shaped literacy.

In the narratives given of the four family members, Brandt looks at literacy as each individual experienced it, depending on (a) how literacy was practiced at the time; (b) how family economics influenced these practices; and (c) how regional economics influenced these practices. An overview of her findings:

Geena (1898)

· Literacy Practices

o Learned to write with slate and chalk

o Had few books; some newspapers

o Wrote stories or wrote for bookkeeping

o Valued writing for labor: typing, shorthand, penmanship

o 1^st generation HS student

o Learned writing as labor skills in college (to be a clerk)

· Family economical influences

o Protestant church

o Rural family: write for records

o Financial constraints mean less go to school

· Regional or Historical Economical influences

o Geographical constraints: Many locations didn’t have schools and folks couldn’t afford travel

o Laws say students go to school until 16

o Economic depression

Sam (1925)

· Literacy Practices

o Learned to write by emulation of proper grammar and speech

o Had more books

o Wrote for community: wrote notes to kids, collaborated on writing plays, taught others to write

o Valued handwriting, emulation, and writing for political/civic engagement

o Learned and conducted tech writing in military

o Attended (but didn’t graduate) college on GI bill.

· Family Economical Influences

o Language style is aligned with elitism and class

o Family beginning switch from rural to urban

· Regional or Historical Economical Influences

o Geographically moved around: some schools better than others

o Can later drive to school

o Literacy of rural gentility: focus on manners and decorum

o WWII and associated technology (radio) and education

Jack (1958)

· Literacy Practices

o Learned to write with guidebooks (like Dick and Jane). Mom reads every night.

o Had a small home library. Spread of children’s literature

o It is the norm to go to college for business or marketing

o More of a focus on writing, especially in college

o Literacy training on the job: computer; forms

o Writing is aligned with social prestige and class

· Family Economical Influences

o Family completes transition to urban: lives in middle-America suburb

o Past and present literacy practices conflict: focus on handwriting still; manners still important

· Regional or Historical Economical Influences

o Not much geographical restraints (many schools in walking distance); however, class is still an issue in regional ed.

o Technology of TV, radio

o Post-war rapid educational expansion

o College is business driven

Michael (1981)

· Literacy Practices

o Learned to write through various materials: chalk, magnetic letters, pens, pencils, typewriter, computer

o Writes in numerous genres: journals, stories, reports, essays, memos, research, letters

o Value on critical thinking and reflection

o First to have an identity as a writer

· Family Economical Influences

o Full urbanites

o Multiple technologies available to average family: computers, books, utensils, etc.

· Regional or Historical Economical Influences

o People adjust skills by location: technology advances quickly and folks adapt (migration of literacy from metropolitan areas to all cities)

Methods/Methodology:

• She constructs her evidence in five ways:
• She provides detailed narratives of each family member’s literacy practices, summarizing and quoting responses from interviews conducted in the early 1990s.
• She offers additional anecdotes that aligned with the May family (from other individuals she interviewed).
• She contextualizes the narratives using historical references relating to education, literacy, economics, and politics. Besides offering factual information about the time period, she also cites sources like: Soltlow and Stevens (1981); Beniger (1986); Goldberg (1951); Thompson (1965); Ginzberg and Bray (1953).
• She frames her analysis by focusing on how economical changes in the country affect literacy practices and sponsorship.
• She compares the family members’ individual experiences to highlight how some literacy practices are “legacies” while others are transformed.

Questions:

Brandt provides a really interesting account of how literacy has transformed in the last century. Still, I have two questions based on what I perceive as relative info not provided by Brandt in this chapter.

• First, I was disappointed that more attention was not placed to Michael’s experience. It is understandable since her interviews were in the early 90s, but I couldn’t help but feel as though my generation’s literacy profile was incomplete, especially considering how literacy has changed dramatically since the advent of the internet and especially considering that the book was published in 2001. How do researchers negotiate the temporal relevancy of their research when technology seems to advance faster than we’re able to conduct research and get this info published?

• Brandt does an impressive job at acknowledging how literacy is situated within local, historical, economical, and individual contexts. In addition to these contexts, I also wondered about how the history of composition in the university might play into the varying literacy practices of her participants. From a methodological point of view, I’m curious about where we should draw the line in our accounts of context. As researchers in comp/rhet, we’re all aware of how much literacy and learning are situated and social experiences. When contextualizing the experiences of our participants in a given study, then, how far should we go in illustrating relevant and influential contexts?